


Snowball

by bigdaddib



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, gendrya gift exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigdaddib/pseuds/bigdaddib
Summary: Arya and Gendry are stuck in a car piled over with snow.2020 Gendrya Gift Exchange
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84
Collections: Gendrya Gift Exchange 2020





	Snowball

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katlyn1948](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katlyn1948/gifts).



> For Katlyn1948
> 
> Prompt: Stranded in the middle of nowhere.

It was dead silent. 

All around them. There was nothing to be heard. No casual conversation, not the drive by of other cars. The wind didn’t even make out a whisper, there was only stillness, heaviness. And she’d be damned if she were the one to break it.

No, she would sit in this for as long as she could, as long as she liked. There was nothing else to do but sit. Nothing at all. Shifting deeper into her seat, she removed her hands from the steering wheel and crossed them over her chest. Keeping her expression as neutral as she was able, she tried to pass the movement as casual and not as a sign the chill was already beginning to settle in. 

“Cold?” Gendry asked her, quite pointedly. 

Arya licked her lips. “No. You’re the southerner. I’ve got a jacket in the back if you’d like to borrow it.”

Gendry scoffed, turning to look out the window. Wasn’t much of a point to it, they were dug quite deep into a mound of snow. All there was to look at was white snow, but if you were lucky, and squinted hard enough, maybe you could catch a star or two. Arya tried for that now, looking to the very edge of her window. “Is that the north star?”

“I’m not playing games with you Arya, what are we going to do now?”

“Well I was thinking we could catch a movie. Anything good come out recently? Nothing with that Lannister boy, please, I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

“You’re not funny, Arya,” Gendry bit. 

Arya shrugged. She thought she was a little funny.

It was quiet again, and again Arya was determined not to break it. Though it would be easy. Quite easily, with no effort at all, she could turn to the raging bull next to her and blame everything on him. Absolutely everything. She could blame him for not bringing his truck, she could remind him they needn’t have carpooled, but he had sort of insisted. At least, Jon did, and he was oddly bent on following her brother’s orders. She could go on and on about that, about how he was so rebellious, and steel willed in every aspect except for her family. Around them he turned into a properly trained puppy, head down and hands tucked behind his back. He turned unrecognizable and it was the most infuriating thing Arya had ever seen. 

But no. She would not yell. She would not scream. And she would not blame. She would sit there and pretend she wasn’t cold. 

Gendry was obviously frustrated with this. He wanted a fight, expected one. Which was the exact reason Arya was not going to let herself give it to him, no matter how easy, how simple, it could be. “Do you even know where we are?” he demanded, turning back to her. 

Arya tapped her finger against her chin. “Well, if that is the north star, that would mean Orion’s belt would be somewhere to the left, placing us approximately—”

Gendry interrupted her bullshit with a frustrated grunt, crossing his arms and facing the windshield. “This is all your fault,” he growled. 

Arya forced a calming breathe through herself. “That deer came out of nowhere. I’m assuming you would’ve preferred me to hit it?”

“I would’ve preferred you use a map,” he was quick to respond. “But no, you know the North too well to get lost. Well, look around Arya. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, buried in a pile of snow.”

She took to tapping her arm with her pointer finger, quite pent up at that point. Mostly because he was right, she should’ve used a map. In fact, she was planning to, but that was before he told her he thought she should. She didn’t want to do a single bloody thing he told her to, she hadn’t even wanted to be in the same car as him. In the same bloody country. It was the whole reason she left, to get away from him. To forget about him. And now here they were, in a snowball, and Arya had to keep control over herself or else she wasn’t sure what she might do. 

“Arguing isn’t going to get us to the wedding rehearsal you know,” she cleared her throat, tapped at her arm. “We’ll just have to wait until morning, dig ourselves out, and try to find reception someplace. Hopefully catch a car,” Arya glanced up at the corner of her window again, realizing what she thought was a star was another cluster of snow. 

Gendry’s hands clenched onto his jeans. “Arguing isn’t going to—who the fuck are you anyway? All you’ve ever done is argue with me,”

A laugh bubbled from deep in her throat, “Yeah, and see how far that got me.”

Silence. Though instead of prolonging it, Arya grasped at something to fill it up. Anything that would clear that memory from the air between them. Not just from him, but her. She didn’t want to think of it, she’s spent too long dwelling on it already. Reliving it, wondering what could have gone differently, what was inevitable…

“Arya—”

She held her hand up, halting anything he may say next. Nothing good came when his voice got soft like that. Gendry wasn’t soft, and when he was it only meant heartbreak was coming. But Arya wasn’t in danger of that anymore, that was the whole bloody point. Of leaving, leaving him. Of forgetting about him. She wouldn’t let her heart anywhere near Gendry Waters ever again. “We should try and sleep. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

Gendry hesitated, apparently no longer in the mood to fight. “Alright,” he whispered. 

“Alright,” Arya added, a bit harsher to erase any lingering emotions his whisper drew. Bumping her knuckles to the light above her head, she allowed darkness to swallow them up. Arya was fine in darkness, comfortable. There she wouldn’t have to look at him. His skin, his hair, his eyes. She had hoped they wouldn’t affect her as they used to and was close to convincing herself she wasn’t. Though, you could only lie to yourself so much, and every time their gaze tangled, so did her breath. 

It was better now that she couldn’t see him. 

No, it wasn’t.  
No, now she had to sit there and feel him. The slight warmth he radiated in the ice cube they were stuck in. She had to hear his breathes, each time he shifted in his seat. All she could focus on was his body and what it might be doing and if it might accidently brush against hers. 

Which she only wanted because it was getting progressively colder. Honest, there was nothing more to it, no deeper need. No burning desires. If there was, she’d be a lot warmer than she was.

Still, she shifted closer to his side and pretended she hadn’t. 

Gendry shifted too. 

Silence. 

“Arya?” he whispered. She held her breath. “D-do you really have a jacket in the back?”

Her lips rolled into each other. “No,” she whispered back, though there was no reason to speak so softly, as if not to disturb the snow floating about them. 

“Oh,”

Silence. 

“Arya?” 

Her breath quivered as it left her chest. Slowly she sat up, unbuckled her seat belt, and turned to him. His eyes were even light in the darkness, almost as light as the snow coating their windows. They stared at her, nowhere close to sleep. Biting her lip, she shifted over the center console and Gendry scooched himself toward the door. It didn’t help much, Arya was still mostly on top of him, head nestled into his neck, one leg tucked between both of his. His skin was cold, but that wasn’t why she shivered. 

“Thank you,” he said into her hair, breath warm. 

“Go to sleep,” Arya returned, lips brushing the skin of his neck. 

They’d been this close before. Not often, granted, but the potential was there. She was willing, and he seemed to be too. Of course, he didn’t know who she was, not really.

He’d been working on her father’s cars in the garage. He was newish, considering Arya had never seen him before and she liked to go down and look around the cars. She remembered the first time she saw him.

It was only his legs as he was rattling around under a car. Immediately, she could tell it wasn’t Yoren under there. Yoren didn’t have legs like that. Long, strong. No one had legs like that. Still, she called out, “Yoren?”

A metallic banging followed paired with a vehement curse. He emerged from the car, glare fixed and ready in his clear blue eyes, peaking from streaks of inky black hair. Arya only blinked. 

His tank top was grease stained, as were his thick, muscled arms, his high cheekbones. Arya wasn’t prepared to walk into something so…that. She was expecting surly Yoren, shriveled and her father’s age. Not this manly man. 

“You’re Jeyne I’m guessing?” he snapped. Arya’s brows only raised. Jeyne was training to replace their housekeeper. “I told them not to send you, I don’t need anything.” Shaking his head clear of whatever pain had inflicted it, he rolled back onto his back and under the car, his shirt lifting to reveal a dark happy trail beneath his belly button. Unashamedly, Arya licked her lips. 

“You’re sure about that?” she managed now that his blue eyes were safely hidden away. His only response was a grunt. “We’ve got…lemonade, I think,” Arya honestly had no idea what sort of beverages they had, but she was sure lemonade could be accessed one way or another. 

“I said I was fine,”

Shrugging, Arya walked over to where he was laying and lowered to her knees. “Yoren always let me watch.”

His rattling halted, “Excuse me?”

“I’d hang out a bit, sometimes I liked to watch what he was doing.”

“Sounds beautiful.”

She chewed her lip, “…So?”

He rolled out again, surprised at how close she was now. They stared for a moment, him seeming to truly register her this time. “A-alright,” he swallowed. 

Arya woke up surprised she wasn’t home in her bed. She was comfortable enough, warm enough. It took her a moment to realize that same warmth and comfort wasn’t from her blankets and pillows. 

His breath fanned the top of her forehead, his cheek against the top her head. Hers was nestled into the almost hot skin of his neck, chin met with the soft fabric of his t-shirt. Her hands, somewhere in the night, found themselves tucked her his shirt, between his back and the car seat. His were under her shirt too, one curved up across her shoulder, the other held secure under her bra strap. One leg was still wedged between both of his, and she had the overwhelming urge to somehow snuggle closer and pretend she had never woken up.

Then he woke up. 

Arya felt him stiffen under her. He remained like that before slowly moving each finger one by one from under her bra strip, slowly gliding down her back until it was free from her shirt. Involuntarily Arya shuddered, goosebumps rising anywhere that held skin. 

Apparently, he didn’t want to pretend not to have woken up. Apparently, he wanted to remove himself from her. How many times did he have to do this for her to get the message? He didn’t want her, he never would. No amount of snow or failed breaks would change that. IT was time for her to wake up too. 

Lifting her head from his neck, she found him already looking down at her. He seemed almost guilty, caught red handed. Arya wasn’t sure for what, her hands were up his shirt as well. It was just warmer that way, that was the whole point of them sharing a car seat. 

Quickly, he slid his other hand from her shoulder. Arya settled further onto her knees so she could slip her hands out too, trying to ignore his skin, and convince herself those weren’t goosebumps lifting from it. “We should probably try and dig out selves out,” Arya started, moving her knee upon noticing how close it was to his crotch. She crawled back to the driver’s seat. “I’ll look around, see if there’s any civilization. You can look at the car.” 

Gendry sat up, “You shouldn’t go looking around by yourself.”

Arya’s ears filled with the sound of her teeth grinding. “I can’t just wait for you to try and fix the car. It could take all day, and we’ll need to look around before it gets dark.” 

Gendry shrugged, “Then we’ll look around tomorrow,”

Arya huffed. “I don’t want to still be here tomorrow,” honestly, she wasn’t sure if she could trust herself. Not after another night wrapped around him. She’d be right back to that day three years ago. She was already halfway there. 

“Then maybe you should’ve used a map,” lowering a window, he shoved his elbow into the wall of snow surrounding them. Once there was enough leeway to make his way out, he turned back to her. “Wanna watch?” 

Arya stayed in the car, chewing mercilessly at her nails. Who the fuck did he think he was? Asking her to watch as if none of that happened? As if they were the same as they once were? As if he hadn’t shoved her away. It sparked a wildfire in her chest, turning his skin hot and her limbs fidgety. She needed to do something, hit something, someone. Him. She wanted to take it all out on him, because what did he think he was doing to her? Why was he was doing this to her? Was this some type of revenge? For what she did to him? 

It wasn’t the same. She didn’t think so anyway. She wanted to tell him who she really was, but before she could he made his opinion of powerful and wealthy families pretty clear. 

“They’re all the same,” she growled into the water bottle he finally let her bring him. “The whole lot of them, scum,”

Arya’s brows raised. “Something you wanna talk about?”

He shook his head, setting the water down and using a rag to wipe the grease off his hands. “Just...this ain’t the first rich family I’ve had to deal with and I…well can’t be much different can it? They are friends after all,”

Arya tried not to guiltily bite at her lip. “Which family?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Like I said, all the same. Shouldn’t have to tell you that, you’re just the same as me,” he looked to her, shyly, cheeks red, before looking back to his hands. Arya guiltily bit at her lip. 

“It’s fucked,” he said in a rush, getting back into the car. He rubbed his hands together, pressed them to his lips, breathed hot air onto them. Arya watch his top lip curl against the side of his finger. “I don’t got the tools to fix it.”

Arya strained over him to look out his clear window. “It’s getting dark.”

“Another night it is then.” 

Looking at him, he was already looking at her. It took her a moment to realize she was still stretched across him, too busy remembering his blue eyes. Sighing, she retreated into her own seat. “Guess so.”

Silence.

“…Arya?”

“Gendry.”

Pause. “I…I just,”

Her heart was beating so fast she was surprised she could hear anything past it. 

Clearing his throat, he managed, “I missed you.”

She visited him every week, and every week she fell more in love with him.

They were comfortable around each other. They started going to get food on his breaks. Arya had just begun to consistently answer to Jeyne. It was the best time of her life, the time she spent with him. 

The day before it all fell apart was probably the best day of her life. They just rolled out from beneath a car, laughing. What they were laughing, she couldn’t remember. It was eclipsed by what happened neck. Standing up, they were close. Closer than they’ve ever been when they were looking each other in the eyes. His were hooded, almost smokey. The lights seemed to dim. 

Slowly, she pressed a palm to his cheek, wiped a grease stain off the top of cheekbone. His breathe left his lips shaky. She arched up on her tiptoes, second hand soft against his chest.  
He held himself away a second longer, “I-I’m all…dirty,”

Arya glanced down, to his grease-stained chest, hands. She looked up, “I know.”

The kiss was slow and hot. Almost molten. It rolled across her skin, thick and overwhelming, coating everything inside of her until it was burning. His grip on her was strong, heavy. Hers was tight, desperate. Arya wished it had lasted longer, but she thought they had nothing but time. 

It was totally dark now, and Arya was pressed as far away from him as she could get. Curled into a ball, the stiffness of the car door dug into the stiffness of her kneecaps. Hugging herself, there was no escaping the tremor that overtook her body. But still, she wouldn’t turn to him, though it would be easy. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to sink into him again. To fall in love again. 

“Arya,” Gendry whispered. Arya pretended she was wasn’t awake. He waited a bit for her to answer before sighing, the leather of his seat straining as he shifted.

Proud she held her ground, she screwed her eyes shut. Willing the cold away. What would her family think? A Stark seeking warmth? What a disappointment. 

Still, she could no longer feel her fingers. 

She endured a minute longer, before sighing. Almost angrily, Arya jerked herself over to Gendry’s seat, curling up into the same position as before, head to his neck, leg between his. She didn’t bother waiting before sliding her hands up under his shirt. His stomach clenched at the contact. 

“Gods, your hands are cold,” he breathed through a laugh.

“Yeah, I know.”

Gently, he brought her hands out, pressed them between both of his (which weren’t much warmer,) and brought them to his mouth. Rubbing his fingers over hers, he emitted hot hair atop them. Arya watched, mind swirling, skin tingling. When he seemed satisfied, he brough her hands back under his shirt, humming as though he was content. Arya settled back into his neck, unsure of what else do with herself. Soon after, his own hands traveled up her shirt, curved over her shoulder and tucked under her bra strap. 

“I missed you too,” she whispered. 

Arya practically skipped to the garage after their kiss. So lost in the memory, she hardly noticed Gendry talking to Jon. Before she could hide, Gendry turned to her with a blinding smile. He opened his mouth to greet her, but Jon beat him to it. 

“Arya!” he beamed, walking up and wrapping her in a hug. It took a moment for her to hug back, busy watching confusion flash through Gendry’s eyes before horror took over. 

“Jon,” she pulled away with a forced smile, trying not to throw herself at Gendry’s feet and beg forgiveness. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Something called a surprise, Arya,” she wished he would stop saying her name, “maybe you’ve heard of it,”

Yes, it had been a surprise indeed. 

Jon left a bit after to greet the rest of the family. Arya stayed downstairs. 

Gendry wouldn’t talk to her, busy under the hood of a car. It took some time before Arya found the courage to approach him. “Gendry?”

He didn’t answer.  
She touched his arm, “Gendry, please—”

He had jerked his arm away, breaking her heart. “Don’t touch me Arya,” 

She had fantasized about him using her real name many times, too many times. Never like that. It was the possibility he would say it like that which kept her from telling him. 

She looked to her feet, “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t do that. Just…just go join your family. There’s nothing for you here,”

Arya was sure she was about to cry. “I…I didn’t…Gendry, please.”

“Please what? You lied to me. What was the point of it? Of any of it? Were you just playing around with me? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Hot anger filled her up, “How could you say that?”

He threw his hands up, “Say what? The truth?! Gods, Arya, I thought you were…I thought we could…” he shook his head, retreating back under the hood. 

Arya rushed up, clinging to his arm. “I am! We can! Please, Gendry. I love you,”

He tore himself away from her, “Stop playing with me! You lot really are all the same,”

Arya shook her head, desperate for him to listen to her. “That’s not true Gendry, you know me.” 

“Yeah, now I do,” he spat, collecting his jacket, and leaving her alone. She called out for him, but he didn’t come back. 

Arya didn’t spend too much time waiting for him. A week or two, she still peaked down into the garage, but he was never there. She only knew he was taking some time to go back home because Jon told her. Apparently, they had been friends. Apparently, Gendry felt safe around Jon because they were both fathered by rich landowners who had abandoned their mothers. 

Arya hadn’t known Robert Baratheon was his father. Or that his mother died when he was young. Or that he had turned to his father for help, but he acted like he didn’t know who that young boy was. Gendry hadn’t told her any of that, but he told Jon. 

She wasn’t planning to go away for school. Even when she was accepted into a famous Braavosi ballet house, it was just nice to know she had options. But she couldn’t stay there, not with these feelings that were raw to the touch. Not with all the memories so clear in the air. She had to get away from it for a bit, it was the only way she wasn’t going to torture herself every day. Because she would. If she decided to stay, she’d sneak down into the garage whenever she could to not only hurt herself, but him. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he was, and who she was hurt him. It was best she left. 

Arya waited for him to wake up. She wanted to pull away first, for the sake of her dignity. But she didn’t. She waited. She waited for him to stiffen, remove his fingers from her bra strap. 

He didn’t. 

She slipped in and out of sleep multiple, yet each time she woke up, he didn’t. At least, not in the way she thought he would. His thumb started moving up and down her skin, his grip tightened, his nose pressed into her hair. But he had to be sleeping, he would never do that if he were awake. Would he?

Slowly, in case he was still sleeping, she inclined her head to look at him. And she was taken back to that one day three years ago. Hooded, smokey eyes, lights dimming. “Awake?” he whispered. 

Slowly, she shook her head because there was no way she was. The corner of his mouth turned up. “Me neither,” he said. 

Silence. They only stared. Arya was determined not to move, not to speak, not to breathe. She couldn’t be sure she was reading him right; she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t dreaming. 

The hand curled over her shoulder moved up to the curve of her neck, lifting her shirt in the process. A breath left her, lips parting. Gendry took of advantage of this, leaning up to connect their lips together. 

Arya couldn’t imagine ever feeling cold again. 

He’d pull away just enough to whisper he was sorry before pulling her closer again. Each time more desperate, more urgent, more frantic. He was almost begging her by the end, for what Arya wasn’t sure. She’d forgiven him, she’d forgiven him the moment he walked away from her. She tried to show him that, through their kisses and caresses, she tried to show how much she forgave him, how much she’d never been mad at him. Not truly, not at all. There was no way she could. 

Just as Arya was seriously considering taking his shirt off, a violent honking separated their mouths. He was still clutching her, holding her hard against him, and her hands were still tangled in his hair. They were squinting through the fog of their window to try and register the interruption, wishing it would go away. 

The honking came again. 

“Fuck,” they both said. Arya lowered the window, Gendry’s arm losing the strength around her but still holding her. Arya poked her head out, spotting a sports car parked behind what was left of hers. She squinted as a redhead popped out, slamming the door behind her. “Sansa?”

“Thank the old Gods and the New Arya, are you alright?!” her sister rushed to their snowball, teetering on her heels in the effort. “We were all so worried. Jon would’ve come but it’s, like, his wedding so—oh,” she blinked at the position she found her sister in. Gendry finally lowered his arms, but still left his hands on her thighs. “Uhm, I’ll wait in the car.”

Silence. 

“I guess we should go,” Arya breathed, looking down to find Gendry’s lips swollen and cheeks red. He bit his lip, nodding. 

Silence. 

She kissed him again.


End file.
